Troubleshooting

This page has a list of common problems and solutions realated to the nRF9160 Feather.

Compiling Problems

Getting a `west.manifest.ManifestImportFailed` when building on Mac

Make sure that you've installed Xcode Command Line tools using xcode-select --install

Programming problems

The nRF9160 Feather does nothing after being programmed/flashed.

After being programmed using west flash, you may have to issue an additional nrfjprog -r or hit the RST button on the board. This should start code execution.

If your nRF9160 Feather is plugged into USB, try a different USB power supply. During the testing of the nRF9160 Feather, I found that certain USB C-to-A adapters injected were not properly grounded. This lead to issues getting a fix or prevented it all together. This especially applied to Apple Macbooks.

"The toolchain is unable to build a dummy C file"

If you're trying to build an example and you're getting an error building your code your should delete the Cmake cache:

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/zephyr

More info here: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/55475/the-toolchain-is-unable-to-build-a-dummy-c-file

Also a post on the forum: https://community.jaredwolff.com/d/51-error-whilst-compiling-blinky/3

Debugging a Hard Fault

[00:00:07.098,754] <err> os: Exception occurred in Secure State
[00:00:07.105,346] <err> os: ***** HARD FAULT *****
[00:00:07.110,961] <err> os:   Fault escalation (see below)
[00:00:07.117,279] <err> os: ***** BUS FAULT *****
[00:00:07.122,833] <err> os:   Precise data bus error
[00:00:07.128,601] <err> os:   BFAR Address: 0x50008158
[00:00:07.134,582] <err> os: r0/a1:  0x00000000  r1/a2:  0x20021489  r2/a3:  0x20021490
[00:00:07.143,341] <err> os: r3/a4:  0xffffffff r12/ip:  0x00046f95 r14/lr:  0x0003ba81
[00:00:07.152,130] <err> os:  xpsr:  0x81000000
[00:00:07.157,379] <err> os: s[ 0]:  0x00000000  s[ 1]:  0x00000000  s[ 2]:  0x00000000  s[ 3]:  0x00000000
[00:00:07.167,938] <err> os: s[ 4]:  0x00000000  s[ 5]:  0x00000000  s[ 6]:  0x00000000  s[ 7]:  0x00000000
[00:00:07.178,466] <err> os: s[ 8]:  0x00000000  s[ 9]:  0x00000000  s[10]:  0x00000000  s[11]:  0x00000000
[00:00:07.188,995] <err> os: s[12]:  0x00000000  s[13]:  0x00000000  s[14]:  0x00000000  s[15]:  0x00000000
[00:00:07.199,523] <err> os: fpscr:  0x00000000
[00:00:07.204,772] <err> os: Faulting instruction address (r15/pc): 0x00047ba0
[00:00:07.212,768] <err> os: >>> ZEPHYR FATAL ERROR 0: CPU exception on CPU 0
[00:00:07.220,672] <err> os: Current thread: 0x20017d00 (unknown)

$ /opt/nordic/ncs/v1.5.0/toolchain/bin/arm-none-eabi-addr2line -e build/zephyr/zephyr.elf 0x00047ba0
reent.c:?

`Error 3` from `newtmgr`

While programming via newtmgr you may run into problems programming your board via the bootloader:

newtmgr -c serial image upload build/zephyr/app_update.bin
63.70 KiB / 65.69 KiB [===================================================================================================================================================================================>-----]  96.98% 15.82 KiB/s
Error: 3

There are a few reasons for this incuding:

Make sure that you do not have your serial console open while transferring. This will case some data to drop during the application upgrade.
V1 versions of the nRF9160 Feather only work with older versions of the SDK (1.2.x ad 1.3.x). The solution here is to upgrade the bootloader.
- Navigate to the downloads page and download the V2 bootloader
- Attach your programming cable and board as you would in programming and debugging
- Use nrfjprog (or similar) to load the file:
```
nrfjprog --program bootloader.hex --chiperase
```
Alternatively you can also downgrade SDK version but this is not supported.
For V1 bootloaders, newtmgr will not program images above 196kB. The solution here is to upgrade to the latest bootloader.

Product Documentation